Early Parliamentary General Election

Debate between Jeremy Corbyn and Angela Eagle

Monday 28th October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Corbyn]

Well, sorry seems to be the hardest word, doesn’t it?

[Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that we have a Prime Minister who has a tortuous and difficult relationship with veracity? My right hon. Friend is therefore absolutely right not to believe a single word that comes out of that man’s mouth?

[Jeremy Corbyn]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. She is right. That is why many of us are very cautious about believing anything that the Prime Minister says. We want this tied down before we agree to anything.

A 12 December election would be less than a fortnight before Christmas and nine days before the shortest day of the year. The House must consider that it will be dark before 4 pm in parts of the country, that many students will have just finished their term and gone home for Christmas—[Interruption.] Well, actually, people having the right to vote is what an election is all about, and people risk being disenfranchised.

Debate on the Address

Debate between Jeremy Corbyn and Angela Eagle

Monday 14th October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Corbyn]

I have news for the hon. Lady: it is her Government who ended the nurse bursary system—simple.

Will the Prime Minister support Labour’s plans to provide free prescriptions to people in England, as has been done in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland? Will he also back Labour’s commitment to legislate for safe staffing levels in all our hospitals?

The previous Queen’s Speech, in 2017, stated:

“My Government will reform mental health legislation and ensure that mental health is prioritised in the National Health Service in England.”

Two years on, all we have are the same warm words. The mental health crisis continues to get worse and worse, as many people in great stress are told that there is no therapy available for several months. As a result, terrible things can happen.

It is a similar story on social care. The 2017 Queen’s Speech promised:

“My Ministers will work to improve social care and will bring forward proposals”.—[Official Report, House of Lords, 21 June 2017; Vol. 783, c. 6.]

Today we have the same promise after two years of inaction and failure, with 87 people dying every day while waiting for social care that is not provided.

This Queen’s Speech is shockingly weak on education, with no commitment on early years, on colleges or on universities. The money announced for our schools does not restore the funding lost since 2010. It is all very well promising extra police, but the reason why we do not have enough police is that the Government cut 21,000 police jobs and nearly 7,000 police community support officers. If the Conservative party—the party in government—wants to talk about providing police with protections, perhaps it can tell the police why it subjected them and millions of other public sector workers to cuts in their pay and pensions, damaging their terms and conditions of employment.

I know that this Government do not have a great record of listening to judges, but they are surely aware that judges already have the powers to ensure that the most serious offenders serve more than half their sentences in jail. Our prisons are severely overcrowded. There are 2,500 fewer prison officers in our prisons today than in 2010—hence many of the problems throughout our prison service. The privatisation of the probation service was a shambolic and costly failure. I hope that lessons have been learned, and we will examine closely any proposals on rehabilitating offenders. I hope that, alongside the tougher sentencing, the Government will also recognise that too many people are in prison on very short sentences for non-violent and non-sexual offences. Our society, I believe, could be better served by their being subject to community sentencing and restorative justice.

What will the Prime Minister do to address the appallingly low conviction rate for rape and other serious sexual offences? The dog-whistle rhetoric around foreign offenders is a rather ugly mask for the fact that, by crashing out of the EU, the Government risk losing some of the most effective measures in tackling cross-border crime: the European arrest warrant, participation in Eurojust and access to numerous databases.

We will, of course, closely study the detail of the Government’s proposals on rail reform, but it is no good simply changing the way in which train operating companies carry on extracting profit from our fragmented railway system. Only a Labour Government will cap fares and ensure that the railway is run for the passengers, not for profit. There is nothing in this Queen’s Speech to reverse the devastating cuts to bus services all over the country. A Labour Government will restore rail and bus services, and the integration of those services.

Two years ago, the horror of Grenfell happened. We all remember it very well and we remember the response of the public and in this House. But I have to say that nine out of 10 private blocks of flats with Grenfell-style cladding have still not had it replaced. Not a single private block has been made safe under this Prime Minister. Will he confirm today that he will set a hard deadline for all landlords to replace dangerous cladding, that he will toughen sanctions against block owners that will not do that work, and that he will fund the retrofitting of sprinklers in all high-rise social housing blocks? Will he restore the budget cuts to our fire service, who acted so heroically on that dreadful night of the Grenfell fire?

Perhaps the Prime Minister can set out what measures there are to address the Government’s abject failure on housing. That has led to more people sleeping on our streets, more families in hostels and temporary accommodation, and fewer people able to buy their own homes. Labour will end no-fault evictions. We will tackle the leasehold scandal and kick-start the largest council house building programme for a generation. It will be Labour that will fix the housing crisis in this country.

The introduction of pension dashboards is welcome, as is the legislation for CDC—collective defined contribution—pension schemes, which I hope will help to resolve the Royal Mail dispute. Sadly, the proposals do nothing to address the injustice done to women born in the 1950s. That injustice must be put right. Additionally, this Queen’s Speech does nothing to guarantee the free TV licence for the over-75s.

The Government handed our armed forces a pay cut for seven years. Cuts to council budgets in England have made it far harder to deliver the armed forces covenant, leaving our veterans and our personnel and all of their families worse off.

We will not allow the Government to stifle democracy by making it harder for people to vote. There was only one instance of voter personation at the last election. Some 11 million people in this country do not have—[Interruption.] This is serious. It is about elections and it is about democracy. Some 11 million people in this country do not have a passport or a driving licence. There are huge risks in the legislation being proposed which will disproportionately affect working class, ethnic minority and young voters.

[Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)]

I thank my right hon. Friend for giving way on that point. Does he agree with me that the decision to require voters to have photo ID at the ballot box is clearly an attempt by the Conservative party to suppress voting, and is designed deliberately to hit the poorest hardest?

[Jeremy Corbyn]

There is no question. My hon. Friend is absolutely right. This legislation is designed to hit the poorest the hardest: those who do not have passports or access to other forms of identity, and who will thus lose their right to vote and decide who governs in the future. [Interruption.]

European Union (Withdrawal) (No. 2) Act 2019 (Rule of Law)

Debate between Jeremy Corbyn and Angela Eagle

Monday 9th September 2019 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Corbyn]

Indeed. I do not keep the Prime Minister’s diary. He may keep his own, but he is certainly not here to reply to this debate. I believe he ought to be, as the motion is specifically directed at him. [Interruption.] Again, I cannot help with that question, but others may be able to do so. We learned from leaked Government papers that our constituents whose medical supplies are at risk from a reckless no deal are very worried, so I urge the Government and Members in all parts of the House to tone down the rhetoric and inflammatory language, and try to heal, not widen, divisions in society. I give credit to those who have worked in a cross-party way, and I have been happy to have meetings with all Opposition party leaders.

A law has been passed by this House and by the other place, and the Government must abide by it. It is not complicated—it is very straightforward and simple.

[Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)]

Last week, I asked the Prime Minister whether, if the Bill became law, he, as the Prime Minister of our country, would obey the law. He said that he would, and so would the Government. The next day he announced that he would rather be dead in a ditch than obey the law. Which does my right hon. Friend think it is?

[Jeremy Corbyn]

I do not really wish anyone dead in a ditch, even if that is their own wish. The first answer that the Prime Minister gave ought to have been that he accepted the will of the democratically elected Parliament. This is a parliamentary democracy—we do not have an executive president who can rule over us. We have to make it very clear that we expect the Prime Minister to abide by the details and specifics of the law that has been passed, which makes specific requirements of him.

European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018

Debate between Jeremy Corbyn and Angela Eagle

Tuesday 29th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Corbyn]

I am making progress, if I may.

The primary part of Labour’s amendment is about finding a workable solution. That means a new customs union, a strong single market deal and no race to the bottom on workers’ rights, on environmental protections and standards or on consumer standards. The EU chief negotiator Michel Barnier has been clear that

“unanimously the European Council…have always said that if the UK chooses to shift its red lines in future…and go beyond a simple free trade agreement…then the European Union will be immediately ready to…give a favourable response.”

We understand that just this weekend the EU Commission President told the Prime Minister that accepting the case for a permanent customs union would help to solve the issue of the backstop arrangement. Indeed, Ireland’s Europe Minister made exactly that point at the weekend, saying:

“The backstop is there because of the red lines that the UK put down”

at the beginning of this process.

We understand that today the Government will back the amendment in the name of the hon. Member for Altrincham and Sale West (Sir Graham Brady)—the Prime Minister said as much—which will require changes to the backstop, but still we have no clarity on what changes they are or which red lines will change to allow that to happen. On the other side, we see that there is flexibility—an apparent willingness now to renegotiate—but only if the red lines change.

[Ms Angela Eagle]

Does my right hon. Friend share my puzzlement, after listening to the Prime Minister for close to an hour and with many people having asked the question, that we are still no nearer to knowing any detail on what the phrase “alternative arrangements” means, except that the Prime Minister said they were arrangements that were alternative?

[Jeremy Corbyn]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. We are witnessing the long, slow decline of this Government as they run down the clock. They put off the vote then lost the vote. They came to the House today and are now offering more votes next week, then a week later and a week later. They are running down the clock, using the fear of no deal as opposed to the Prime Minister’s deal. Her deal was defeated two weeks ago, but the Prime Minister is still to answer the question on which of her red lines she is prepared to change, or even just be flexible on. It is clear that the obstacle to a solution is the Prime Minister. She is refusing to accept the clearly stated will of this House, which has decisively—in record numbers for a parliamentary vote—defeated her deal and which is equally clear in its opposition to a disastrous no deal, which I hope and expect will be reiterated tonight.